


Wandering Angel

by the_original_n_chan



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Drabbles, JeanMarco Week, M/M, canonverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-26
Updated: 2014-10-26
Packaged: 2018-02-22 18:22:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2517380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_original_n_chan/pseuds/the_original_n_chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of drabbles for Jeanmarco week 2014. (Spoilers for chapter 59 of the manga.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wandering Angel

**Author's Note:**

> I'm old school, by which I mean that a drabble equals 100 words exactly, so have 700 words of Jean/Marco (not counting prompt titles).
> 
> Disclaimer: All rights reserved to the original creators. No copyright infringement is intended.

 

_Day 1: Zero gravity_

 

At the peak of his swing, where momentum has ceased and gravity hasn’t yet taken hold, there’s a perfect stillness, a suspension between earth and sky.

Jean wonders if this is what it’s like to be an angel.

If his hands weren’t taken up with his blades, he’d reach toward that endless blue, toward the feathery floating clouds, toward the invisible reaches of heaven. Toward the one he hopes is there, looking down on him, watching over him in this fight.

And Marco’s name is silent on his lips, beats like thunder in his heart as he begins to fall.

 

* * * * *

 

_Day 2: Olympus_

 

There is always a place for the dead.

In every nation, in every tradition: Hades, Annwn, the Duat, Xibalba, Heaven. Some are beautiful, some terrifying; but from all, no one ever returns. Even the greatest heroes, those who go to dwell with the gods, will never again walk beside the ones they loved in life.

Marco doesn’t really think he’s a hero.

But as he stands at the threshold, he knows what he’s giving up. And the sacrifice is more than worth it.

He turns from his Paradise, his Valhalla, his Olympus, and steps onto the wind with a smile.

 

* * * * *

 

_Day 3: Homecoming_

 

They are battered, when they return to the Survey Corps’s castle at last, survivors of a bitter, brutal struggle.

Battered, but not broken. Not yet.

Jean lies down with a groan, covers his eyes with one arm, and tries to think of the triumphs—not the pyrrhic discoveries, the cruelties and tragedies, the questions that they always come back to.

_Why do Titans eat people? Why must we suffer and grieve?_

Slipping into the bed, Marco curls up next to Jean and puts both arms around him, intangible as air.

There are tears on Jean’s face when he falls asleep.

 

* * * * *

 

_Day 4: Candlelight_

 

Jean awakens with a start. Outside the window, the sky is deepest indigo: the bowl of night, strewn with moon and stars. But inside the room the light is golden, its circle intimate and warm. A single candle burns on the bedside table; its flame stands straight and still like a soldier, an ever-watchful guardian.

Jean frowns. He doesn’t remember lighting a candle.

Smiling but also a bit sad, Marco leans closer to Jean, and the flame jumps, bowing on its wick at the whisper of his wings, the stirring of his breath as he speaks.

_Jean. You aren’t alone._

 

* * * * *

 

_Day 5: Ash_

 

Jean remembers that night so clearly: the fire, the dark, the shadow smudges left on his fingers as he picked a shard of bone from the pyre. He looks at the fragment now, cupped in his palm, and wonders about that tipping point of fate.

“If you’d lived, would we have joined the Military Police together? Would we have been on the other side?”

It could have been his blood on Armin’s hands. It could have been Marco’s.

Is he imagining the comforting touch, like fingers curled over his own, weightless as ashes?

_I would have followed wherever you went._

 

* * * * *

 

_Day 6: Uniform_

 

_It looks good on you._

Jean adjust his cuffs, checks the lie of the maneuver gear straps around his thighs. The gestures are automatic; he moves with a veteran’s hard grace, although he’s scarcely been in the Corps a couple of months.

He’s grown, Marco thinks—not just physically, although it’s true that they’re closer to the same height now, but in every way.

_You do that uniform proud, Jean._

Moving closer, Marco rests his hands on Jean’s squared shoulders, leans forward, wings curving to embrace him, and feels that coiled tension ease: a momentary sigh.

 _You make_ me _proud._

 

* * * * *

 

_Day 7: Dream_

 

Jean opens his eyes.

“ _Oh._ ”

Maybe he should be more surprised to see Marco floating above him, shirtless, bracketed by glimmering wings. Even in his dream, he knows that Marco’s gone. Marco’s eyes widen, and then he smiles, that same dumb, beautiful, beloved smile—an angel with freckles, ha—until Jean pulls him down to seek those lips with his own.

As their mouths part, fear strikes Jean, and he clutches Marco’s arm. “I don’t want to wake up in a world without you,” he says.

Marco smiles again, dips in for another kiss, and whispers:

“I’ll always be here.”


End file.
